ABSTRACT
The integrity of social work demands a core ethical focus toward fostering a society that effectively enables people to flourish. After all, the profession was born out of selfless caring activities in support of people who required personal changes toward greater well-being and meaning in life. In this aim, social workers have had both positive and negative impacts upon human welfare. Recent history provides examples of social work practice being co-opted into disempowering procedures (Ioakimidis, 2015). The ethical foundations of social work have modified and reformed as it has adjusted to government policies, neoliberal worldviews, globalization, multiculturalism, and developments in gender relations (DuBois & Miley, 2014; Hugman, 2003; Reamer, 1998; Thompson & Wadley, 2016). These adjustments are made most obvious when reflecting upon uncaring social work activities which failed people, subsequently leading to harm, worsening social conditions and social injustices toward client populations of indigenous peoples, the poor and, recently, refugees. Reflection is required because the contribution of social work to the lives of others is today subject to important tensions which strongly challenge its ethical focus.
